Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Chris vs. Previews: April, 2007, Part One

As sad as I am to bid farewell to the internet's #1 Volstagg Fan-Site, the moment has passed. Sadly, a world where webmasters battle it out amongst each other to prove their devotion to the Lion of Asgard must remain a beautiful, beautiful dream. Instead, it's back to normal here at the ISB, and with the start of a new month, that means it's time for another stern, uncompromising look at Transformers movie adaptations, anime t-shirts, and five hundred fifty-eight more pages of stuff nobody really needs!

But could there be any other must-haves this time out? Gird thy loins*, gentle reader, because tonight, it's the major publishers!

Dark Horse Comics

P.42: Gunsmith Cats Revised Edition v.3 and P.43: Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service v.4: It's been a few years since I've described myself as a manga reader, but if my anticipation at getting another huge slab of Kenichi Sonada's work that focuses exclusively on pretty girls blowing things up wasn't a good enough sign that I'm back on the train, then my excitement about a crossover with Mail in the next volume of Kurosagi should be a pretty big clue.

It's just that... I mean... I don't have to wear one of those stupid headbands, do I?

DC Comics

P.68: Action Comics #851: Owing to the fact that Geoff Johns and Richard Donner were delivering a pretty patently unnecessary story, I dropped Action from my subscription a few months ago. Still, if I have proven anything over the past two years here on the ISB, it's that I have pretty much no ability whatsoever to say no to an offer like "Superman fights the Superman Revenge Squad... IN 3-D!"

Now if it was only on something that was as guaranteed-awesome as that new All-Star Superman over on p.70, we'd be set.

P.72: The Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen TP: At this point, my pure, unwaveringdevotion to Superman's Pal is a matter of public record, but how could anyone turn down stories featuring Porcupine Jimmy, Bizarro Jimmy, Fat Jimmy, Wolfman Jimmy, Suspiciously Phallic-Headed Jimmy, and--of course--Six-Armed Kolchak The Nightstalker Jimmy! You can't, and that is science!

P.74: Countdown #47-41: You know what the DC Universe needs? More goth cheerleaders.

P.81: Justice League of America #10: At this point, anything I can say about Michael Turner's hilariously atrocious cover for this issue--which features a glassy-eyed Power Girl sprouting a badonkadonk from the middle of her curiously elongated thorax in an image that'll make blood shoot out of your nose like a fire hydrant if you stop to think about how it's right next to Kirby art--would be redundant at best, but man: Someone got paid to draw that.

P.99: Samurai Commando Mission 1549, v.1: My earlier comments about manga aside, I'll always have a little bit of a soft spot for anything that produces titles like that one. But what's really shocking here is that I'm pretty sure this thing is based on the same source material that brought us Sonny Chiba's GI Samurai, which has one of the single greatest trailers I have ever seen, owing to the fact that it features Sonny Chiba taking out a small army of Samurai with a helicopter.

P.113: Clubbing GN: Okay: Confession time. I kinda... sorta... really like Josh Howard's art. There you have it, folks, my big secret's out: I like really angular drawings of goth chicks. Sadly, it is just how I roll.

Unfortunately, I really can't stand him as a writer, and so aside from the pair of pinup books he's put out (the second of which features a little too much sasquatch for my taste), my collection's remained realtively Howard-Free. With this one, though, I'm already excited about the new Minx titles, and with a script by Andi Watson, I'm relatively sure that I won't be seeing any zombie cheerleaders hitting each other with axes or something.

P.23: Avengers Classic #1: On the one hand, I'm pretty sure that the last thing we really need at this point is a fourth ongoing Avengers title, but on the other, it'd be nice if more of them were actually, you know, good, and since this thing's got ISB favorites Dwayne McDuffie, Mike Oeming, Kevin Maguire and Art Adams involved--not to mention a story where the Hulk pretends to be a robot that is also a clown in order to accomplish absolutely nothing--that's not really the sort of thing I want to say no to.

P.34: Immortal Iron Fist #7: Tom Foss at The Fortress of Soliloquy caught this one when it first showed up online, and immediately declared that my hard work has paid off, and that we have finally reached the point where Marvel is publishing comics specifically for me. His evidence? The single greatest solicitation since Nextwave ended (with his emphasis preserved for effect):

"Her name was Wu Ao-Shi, and she was known as the Pirate Queen of Pinghai Bay... and that all came after she left K'un-Lun and took the power of the Iron Fist with her. Kicking her way out of the pages of THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST #2, this stand-alone issue tells the story of Wu Ao-Shi, from the moment she became the first woman to touch the heart of Shou-Lao the Undying to her mysterious, controversial, and epic ending. At long last, America, someone has combined pirates, kicking, girls, and Iron fist into a single comic book. You're welcome."

Truly, this is the pinnacle of civilization.

P.82: Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: Guilty Pleasures v.1 HC (DM Exclusive): Despite the fact that it's listed as being twenty-four pages longer than the regular edition (although both contain the extra story pages, according to the solicits), I have not been contacted about the inclusion of my exhaustivelyresearchedannotations of the series as a "bonus feature" in the Direct Market hardcover collection, which fans of dubious literature will no doubt regard as a tragedy of the highest order.

And that's the big hitters for this month. Be here tomorrow for the rest of them, though, including another harrowing journey into the Heart of Darkness that is the Apparel Section! Believe it!

Ignoring the fact that I already pick up Immortal Iron Fist, and ignoring the fact that I spent 2 hours last Sunday at a local Con hunting for Marvel Premiere #15 before having the owner of my LCS tell me he can hook me up with a copy on the cheap, ignoring these facts I would totally buy IIF #7 because of that solicitation alone.

In fact, Marvel could just re-run that same solicit text every month to guarantee my 3 bucks, if they weren't already gettting it.

Does anyone else have the suspicion that the 'Minx' titles are going to almost exclusively be bought by twenty-something males?

Out of interest, where are the 'Minx' comics going to be sold? Do they have special distribution plans in place or anything? Because surely if they are just sold in comic shops, they'll not really get to their intended audience.

That Sgt. Rock MiniMate is creeping me out, man. He's all grizzled and hollow-cheeked...but for all the detail applied to his face, he still doesn't have a nose. For some reason, I find this profoundly disturbing.

Re the Spawn mini-mates---you have to love any series that produced characters called "Clown," "Violater," "the Redeemer," and "Overkill." Where's the action figure for "Generic 90's Guy with Big Gun" and "Bad Ass Military Chick in Armored Bikini"?

It might be out of fashion, and I haven't read an issue of "Spawn" since about 1993, but the Clown and Violater Mini-Mates are awesome.

Did Asylum ever make a Sgt. Fury Mini-Mate to battle with the Sgt. Rock? And how long before we get "Showcase: Sgt. Rock?" And why haven't we gotten it yet, dammit?!

I was thinking about picking up "The Plain Janes" and maybe some of the other Minx titles for my fiancee as part of my ongoing unsuccessful plan to get her into comics. So that would be one more twenty-something guy buying books aimed at teen girls. I'm such a feeb.

Man, Battlin' Jack Murdock is the coolest name and is completely wasted on Daredevil's dead dad. A dude with that name deserves to be the perfect combination of the Thing, Nick Fury, Wildcat, and Solomon Stone, but instead... Daredevil's dead dad.

the basics

"Chris works at a comic book shop so he reviews all the latest releases, but the real awesomeness lies in his ability to find obscure or forgotten comic books and write hilariously sarcastic reviews that make fun of them. They deserve it!"--Blair Butler on G4 TV's Attack of the Show!